1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a three-dimensional (3D) contents data encoding/decoding method and apparatus; and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for encoding/decoding 3D contents data universally.
2. Description of Related Art
Currently, a triangular mesh is widely used as a method for representing 3D contents in the computer graphics field. A triangular mesh image having a non-uniform structure includes geometry information of vertexes forming a triangle and connectivity information between the vertexes, and has a larger amount of data than a two-dimensional image having a uniform structure.
Recently, the 3D graphics field has been frequently used. However, the use range of the 3D graphics field is limited because the amount of 3D contents data is huge as described above. Accordingly, demand for a method for encoding 3D contents effectively has been increasing. Recently, research for encoding 3D contents effectively has been actively conducted.
In the Moving Picture Expert Group-4 (MPEG-4)—3 Dimensional Graphics Compression (3DGC) field, a compression standard called Animation Framework eXtension (AFE) has been established. In the AFE, a large number of techniques including 3DMC/3DMCe, WSS, MeshGrid, IC, BBA, SC3DMC and so on are used.
The 3DMCe which is known most widely is a tool for encoding mesh data, but cannot encode 3D contents data including animation information. Animation information may be encoded by using an animation encoding tool such as the BBA. However, since the BBA cannot encode mesh data, the BBA cannot encode 3D contents data including both of mesh data and animation data. That is, when 3D contents data including both of mesh data and animation data are to be encoded to generate one encoded file, the 3DMCe and the BBA cannot be used at the same time. The mesh data and the animation data should be encoded by using the 3DMCe and the BBA, respectively.
Therefore, there is demand for a method capable of providing a new encoding framework in which existing encoding techniques are integrated is required to encode 3D contents data universally and effectively.